E. B. White | |
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 White on the beach with hisdachshund Minnie | |
| Born | Elwyn Brooks White July 11, 1899 Mount Vernon, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 1, 1985(1985-10-01) (aged 86) Brooklin, Maine, U.S. |
| Resting place | Brooklin Cemetery, Brooklin, Maine, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Cornell University (BA) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Joel White |
| Signature | |
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Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985)[1] was an American writer. He was the author of several highly popular books for children, includingStuart Little (1945),Charlotte's Web (1952), andThe Trumpet of the Swan (1970).
In a 2012 survey ofSchool Library Journal readers,Charlotte's Web was ranked first in their poll of the top one hundred children's novels.[2] White also was a contributing editor toThe New Yorker magazine and co-author ofThe Elements of Style, anEnglish languagestyle guide.Kurt Vonnegut called White "one of the most admirable prose stylists our country has so far produced."[3]
White was born inMount Vernon, New York, on July 11, 1899, the sixth and youngest child of Samuel Tilly White, the president of a piano firm, and Jessie Hart White, the daughter ofScottish-American painterWilliam Hart.[4] Elwyn's older brotherStanley Hart White, known as Stan, a professor oflandscape architecture and the inventor of thevertical garden, taught E.B. White to read and explore the natural world.[5]
White attendedCornell University, where he was briefly a private in the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), created by theUS Department of War in 1918 to hasten the training of US soldiers forWorld War I in Europe. Students continued to take college courses while training for the army. Unlike the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), SATC students were required to live and take all meals on campus and adhered to a strict military schedule of study and training. They also required a pass to go off campus on weekends. Following the end of World War I, the SATC program was disbanded in December 1918, and White did not serve with the active armed forces.[6][7][8][9]
In 1921, White graduated from Cornell University with aBachelor of Arts degree. At Cornell, he obtained the nickname "Andy", where tradition confers that moniker on any male student whose surname is White after Cornell co-founderAndrew Dickson White.[10] He worked as editor ofThe Cornell Daily Sun with classmateAllison Danzig, who later became a sportswriter forThe New York Times. As a Cornell University student, White was a member ofAleph Samach,[11]Quill and Dagger,[12][13] andPhi Gamma Delta fraternity.[14][15]
After graduating from Cornell, White went to work for the United Press, laterUnited Press International, and theAmerican Legion News Service in 1921 and 1922. From September 1922 to June 1923, he was a cub reporter forThe Seattle Times. On one occasion, when White was stuck writing a story, aTimes editor said, "Just say the words."[16]
White was fired from theTimes and later wrote for the rivalSeattle Post-Intelligencer before a stint inAlaska on a fireboat.[17] He then worked for almost two years with the Frank Seaman advertising agency as a production assistant and copywriter[18] before returning toNew York City in 1924.
In 1925, afterThe New Yorker was founded, White began submitting manuscripts to the magazine.Katharine Angell, the literary editor, recommended to editor-in-chief and founderHarold Ross that White be hired as a staff writer. However, it took months to convince White to attend a meeting at the office and additional weeks to convince him to work on the premises. He eventually agreed to work in the office on Thursdays.[19]
White published his first article forThe New Yorker in 1925, then joined the staff in 1927, and continued to write for the magazine for nearly six decades. Best recognized for his essays and unsigned "Notes and Comment" pieces, he gradually became the magazine's most important contributor. From the beginning to the end of his career atThe New Yorker, he frequently provided what the magazine calls "Newsbreaks", which were short, witty comments on oddly worded printed items from many sources, under various categories, such as "Block That Metaphor." He also was a columnist forHarper's Magazine from 1938 to 1943.
In 1929, White coauthored withJames Thurber onIs Sex Necessary? In 1949, White publishedHere Is New York, a short book based on an article he had been commissioned to write forHoliday. EditorTed Patrick approached White about writing the essay, telling him it would be fun. "Writing is never 'fun'", White replied.[20] That article reflects the writer's appreciation of a city that provides its residents with both "the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy." It concludes with a dark note touching on the forces that could destroy the city that he loved. This prescient "love letter" to the city was re-published in 1999 on his centennial with an introduction by his stepson,Roger Angell.
In 1959, White edited and updatedThe Elements of Style. This handbook of grammatical and stylistic guidance for writers ofAmerican English was first written and published in 1918 byWilliam Strunk Jr., one of White's professors at Cornell. White's reworking of the book was extremely well received, and later editions followed in 1972, 1979, and 1999.Maira Kalman illustrated an edition in 2005. That same year,Nico Muhly, a New York City composer, premiered a short opera based on the book. The volume is a standard tool for students and writers and remains required reading in many composition classes. The complete history ofThe Elements of Styleis detailed in Mark Garvey'sStylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style.
In 1978, White was awarded aspecial Pulitzer Prize, citing "his letters, essays and the full body of his work".[21] He also received thePresidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and honorary memberships in a variety of literary societies throughout the United States. The 1973Oscar-nominated Canadian animatedshortThe Family That Dwelt Apart was narrated by White and was based on his short story of the same name.[22]
In the late 1930s, White turned his hand tochildren's fiction on behalf of a niece, Janice Hart White. His first children's book,Stuart Little, was published in 1945, andCharlotte's Web followed in 1952.Stuart Little initially received a lukewarm welcome from the literary community. However, both books went on to receive high acclaim, andCharlotte's Web won aNewbery Honor from theAmerican Library Association, though it lost out on winning the Newbery Medal toSecret of the Andes byAnn Nolan Clark.
White received theLaura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the U.S. professional children's librarians in 1970. It recognized his "substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature."[23] That year, he was also the U.S. nominee and eventual runner-up for the biennialHans Christian Andersen Award, as he was again in 1976.[24][25] Also, in 1970, White's third children's novel was published,The Trumpet of the Swan. In 1973 it won the Sequoyah Award from Oklahoma and theWilliam Allen White Award from Kansas, both selected by students voting for their favorite book of the year. In 2012, theSchool Library Journal sponsored a survey of readers, which identifiedCharlotte's Web as the best children's novel ("fictional title for readers 8–12" years old). The librarian who conducted it said, "It is impossible to conduct a poll of this sort and expect [White's novel] to be anywhere but #1."[2][26]
White was shy around women, claiming he had "too small a heart, too large a pen".[27] But in 1929, after an affair that led toKatharine Angell's divorce, she and White were married. They had a son,Joel White, a naval architect and boat builder, who later owned Brooklin Boat Yard inBrooklin, Maine. Katharine's son from her first marriage,Roger Angell, spent decades as a fiction editor forThe New Yorker and was well known as the magazine'sbaseball writer.[28]
In her foreword toCharlotte's Web,Kate DiCamillo quotes White as saying, "All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world."[29] White also loved animals, farms and farming implements,seasons, andweather formats.[citation needed]
James Thurber described White as a quiet man who disliked publicity and who, during his time atThe New Yorker, would slip out of his office via the fire escape to a nearby branch ofSchrafft's to avoid visitors he didn't know:
Most of us, out of a politeness made up of faint curiosity and profound resignation, go out to meet the smiling stranger with a gesture of surrender and a fixed grin, but White has always taken to the fire escape. He has avoided the Man in the Reception Room as he has avoided the interviewer, the photographer, the microphone, the rostrum, the literary tea, and theStork Club. His life is his own. He is the only writer of prominence I know of who could walk throughthe Algonquin lobby or between the tables at Jack and Charlie's and be recognized only by his friends.
— James Thurber, E.B.W., "Credos and Curios"
Later in life, White developedAlzheimer's disease. He died on October 1, 1985, at hisfarm home inNorth Brooklin, Maine.[1] He is buried in the Brooklin Cemetery beside Katharine, who died in 1977.[30]
TheE. B. White Read Aloud Award is given byThe Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) to honor books that its membership feel embodies the universal read-aloud standards that E.B. White's works created.
The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections atCornell University Library holds the E.B. White Collection, an archive of manuscripts, letters, photographs, cassette tapes regarding E. B. White, including over 25,000 letters sent to him.[31][32] For example, when Late Night show hostConan O'Brien reminisced about the return letter he received from E. B. White after writing him a letter at the age of 16, Cornell's Olin Library found that letter for him.[33] During the 2025Palisades Fire, O'Brien recalled that when he was told to evacuate, his wife asked what to grab, and he replied, "Just grab the E.B. White letter off the wall."[34]
His nickname, 'Andy,' dates from his years at Cornell. According to Cornell tradition, all male students named White were nicknamed after Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White.
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